Dirty Dogs, Old Tricks

In a bizarre turn in the “Puppy Neepery,” as John Scalzi likes to call it, author Lou Antonelli announced in the Superversive SF Hugo Livestream podcast that he had written a letter to the Spokane Police Department alerting them that the guest of honor and Hugo Award emcee David Gerrold has been so “intemperate” in his on-line comments that violence might erupt.

As someone who started following David Gerrold on Facebook because I found his commentary on Puppygate so well-spoken, reasoned, and positive, I’m having a really hard time understanding why anyone would think Gerrold, “belongs in a secure psychiatric facility” and felt the need to write a letter to the police about him.

Weirder yet, in my opinion, is Antonelli’s notpology in which he claims he was reacting “in a manner that I thought I was being treated.” [].

Who called the cops on Antonelli, I wonder? I mean, seriously. Someone tells you that maybe you’ve got the wrong end of the stick about something and you consider that person so criminally insane you feel the need tell the police to be on the look out for them? For real?

Also, it’s very important to note that this is not the first time Antonelli has does this kind of breaking the Fourth Wall thing. When called an asshole on Twitter, he hunted down personal information about the tweeter and called his place of employment and personally harassed him. Totally rational behavior.

Similarly, when an editor decided she no longer wished to publish Antonelli’s story in her anthology because of his SWATting of Gerrold, he posted about it in a way on his Facebook page that made it very easy for his followers to dox and harass her. Super nice.

He’s apologized, kind of, for that too. Or, at least called off the dogs… a little.

Amazingly, this so-called reaction to the way he thought he was being treated has resulted in… (drum roll, please)… zero consequences for Antonelli.

Yep, the way he’s been treated by his loyal opposition is well beyond fairly. A few more people know his name now, and, at worst, have crossed him off their to-be-read list. But, the folks running the Hugo Awards, the Sasaquan WorldCon Committee, have not banned him (though they really kind of wanted to). Guess why they didn’t?